Our practice emerged from a recognition that Cape Town's port architecture represents an irreplaceable record of industrial and social history—one that requires specialized knowledge to properly understand and preserve.
The practice was established in 2018 following a multi-year research collaboration between the University of Cape Town's School of Architecture and the provincial heritage authority. That project produced the first comprehensive survey of 19th-century port infrastructure in the Western Cape, identifying over 200 structures of historical significance.
What became clear during that work was the absence of technical expertise specifically addressing maritime industrial buildings. These structures present unique conservation challenges: coastal exposure accelerates material deterioration, original construction methods often departed from contemporary residential practices, and functional requirements created architectural forms rarely seen in other building types.
Our methodology combines archival investigation with material analysis. Before recommending any intervention, we establish what exists now and how it came to be that way. This means examining construction chronology through physical evidence—mortar composition, timber species, fastener types, paint stratigraphy.
Simultaneously, we trace ownership records, insurance policies, shipping company archives, and photographic collections. The goal is to understand not just how a building was constructed, but why specific decisions were made and how the structure adapted over decades of use.
This research phase typically reveals information that changes intervention strategy. A wall that appears to be original fabric may prove to be a 1930s reconstruction following fire damage. An opening that seems inappropriately enlarged might have been widened during the building's original construction period to accommodate larger cargo handling equipment.
Current staff includes three architectural historians, two conservation architects, and a materials specialist with training in historic masonry and timber construction. We maintain ongoing collaborations with structural engineers experienced in heritage assessment and with archivists at multiple repositories.
Most of our work occurs in the Cape Town metropolitan area, though we have undertaken documentation projects in Port Elizabeth, East London, and Durban when those involved comparable building types or periods.
Recent projects have concentrated on three building types that remain underrepresented in heritage documentation: early 20th-century cold storage facilities, timber wharfside warehouses from the 1880s-1920s period, and worker housing associated with port operations.
We are also developing condition assessment protocols specifically calibrated for maritime exposure environments. Standard heritage assessment frameworks often fail to account for the distinctive deterioration patterns seen in coastal industrial buildings—salt crystallization in masonry, accelerated ferrous metal corrosion, biological growth in perpetually damp timber assemblies.
Documentation produced through our projects is deposited with the Western Cape Archives and Records Service and made available to researchers. We have contributed measured drawings and historical analysis to several heritage nomination dossiers and environmental impact assessments.
Staff members have presented findings at symposia organized by the Association for Preservation Technology and the South African Institute of Architects Heritage Committee.